There is much talk recently about the GPS Revolution. Just look at the cover of the latest issue of the WIRED magazine. Technology power houses like Google, Microsoft, Nokia, T-Mobile and large social networks like Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn are offering location aware features or sharing options. And of course there are services like Brightkite, Yahoo! Fire Eagle or Plazes that are specialized on location sharing. Let’s break down some of the most basic usage scenarios and best practice examples. And let’s take a look at what Google Latitude offers and how it might fit into the bigger picture.

Since mobile phones found their way into the pockets and hand bags of everyday people the often heard questions when taking a call is: “Where are you?” followed by “What do you do?”. These are the things that most social network services revolve around. Up to the minute status messages have created a new neural network among friends, business partners and otherwise connected crowds. Mark Zuckerberg talks about “creating efficiency within society” and I agree.
And while it is good to see that “Melina has chocolate for breakfast”, “Martin is freezing in Chicago”, or “Jeff is returning from a conference in Berlin”, theses posts are of limited relevance when either enough time has passed between when they are posted and when they are read or simply thousands of miles are between poster and reader. Add in proximity filtering and alerting options and posting like the ones above can become a whole lot more relevant and actionable.

I recommend reading the article in the February issue of WIRED Magazine about 10 mobile applications that make use of GPS to offer smart and/or entertaining services. (The article is available online as well. )
This will give you a glimpse of what is on the horizon with GPS-enabled mobile applications as devices gaining more and more adoption by consumers.

The list of 10 is fairly US/Western world centric so I would not be surprised to learn more about applications that support some fairly exotic use cases. If you have interesting examples from the Middle East, Africa or Asia, please post them to the comments!

Self localization on non-GPS enabled mobile phones isn’t new. Google Maps Mobile does it, and the the US cell carriers Helio and Sprint have added services like Buddy Beacon or Loopt, which even let you locate your friends. Yet another service has launched in Germany called NowHere. I stumbled across an ad for their service on Facebook today and immediately tried it out.

As you might heard Nokia is pushing connected location based devices and context aware Internet services. They announced Ovi in August 2007, a portal for consumers to get to and share music, games and maps.Now they have started a beta version of a sports tracking portal that extends their GPS enabled mobile phones. Funny enough, this is not integrated into Ovi but a standalone website for now. But let’s take a closer look.

When visiting a foreign city on your own you probably prepare yourself by checking out a few places in advance, don’t you? You look up where your hotel is, the places you plan to visit (or the office), surrounding restaurants, bars, shopping, ATMs etc.
At least that is what I did when I was traveling on business to Chicago just recently. I’m much more comfortable while traveling when I explore the destination a little bit in advance.

So what I did was bookmarking or “map-marking” a couple of places on an online map.

The Firefox Minimap Sidebar is a handy little thing. It allows you to very quickly locate any address on a map in a sidebar window of your browser.

It’s an easy Firefox add-on install and once the Minimap Sidebar is open, simply highlight an address you found on a website and drag and drop the address from the website into the Minimap Sidebar’s drop box. And voilà, the location is displayed on a Google Map.

It doesn’t stop there though. Addresses are listed in the box for later use. These can then be used for driving directions by selecting them from a drop down. You can also set a home address and start routing to and from there. The choice is yours whether you prefer Google Maps, Yahoo! Maps or Microsoft’s Live Local.
And last but not least you can also share the location by getting its coordinates, a link to the map page, e-mail the link or even get an embed code for your own site – and all that straight from a right-click context menu.
KML and GeoRSS are also supported and of course you can also manually type in an address. Once an address is located you can browse places with Tagzania, Platial, or Loc.alize.us flickr photos.

The Minimap Sidebar is developed by Tony Farndon. Go visit his site at http://firefox.spatialviews.com/ where you’ll find the download link as well.

In the past few weeks I’ve looked at a couple of different local search services. After BMW announced last week that Google Local Search is now available from the latest BMW onboard navigation system it is about time to share some thoughts with you. I also have to admit writing this post has been fueled by a discussion about whether Yellow Pages are of any use these days or just a waste of paper. Even Seth Godin, has posted on his blog about the possibilities and opportunities of putting the “Yellow Pages in your Pocket“
So besides BMW, let’s have a look at two mobile product/shop finders and how to choose a proper pub in Japan.

Last week Nokia introduced “Ovi“, their new extended platform for mobile services.
Ovi is supposed to offer a consolidated web portal to already existing Nokia mobile services, like music, games, and maps. Plus they plan to enable access to users’ existing social network, communities and content.
Nokia’s aim is to bring even more Internet based services to Ovi in the coming months, so we can all be curious.

As Nokia is offering a map application for their phones to European customers already this will now be integrated into the new home.
So far the Nokia Maps application offers services like,
maps of 150 countries, navigation and routing, supporting internal as well as external GPS receivers
3D route guidance of voice-guided navigation (at additional costs),
and city guides.

As Ovi means “door” in Finish you can see their ambition: an easy to use one-stop place on the web for users to access their Nokia services.

The Ovi is not yet open. But I’ll post again about it once it is.

NFC, short for Near Field Communication is a technology that enables the communication between devices over a short distance (ca. 0-8 inches), using magnetic field induction. The technology is primarily aimed at usage in mobile phones.

Now why do I think this can be alternative to GPS? Because I’m a dreamer!
So here is what I was thinking:
With NFC you can transfer location coordinates from a transponder to a phone. As it works without the need for satellite reception it is perfect for urban street canyons or indoor use like subways, shopping malls, or conference centers. Yes, because of the short range there is a downside which is the need for tagging street corners or building corridors with transponders. And yes, NFC is still in its infancy. So let’s look at a field test I was able to sneak myself in – and my experiences so far.

In the last two posts I looked at how TomTom and Google are engaging users to contribute or refine map data. Today I came across the news that Google has started a program to pay independent contractors to capture the details of local businesses like stores, restaurants, and service providers. Google’s intention is to not only index where on a map local businesses are, but also more detailed information like opening hours, payment options, the various offerings, and a couple of photos of the store, storefront or building.
While local businesses can already sign up themselves , this is clearly a move by Google to actively become tomorrow’s Yellow Pages. Clever as Google is, they encourage the contractors, which may refer to themselves as “Google Business Referral Representatives”, to introduce Google’s advertising opportunities while talking to store owners.
And there is really a lot more to this.